Techniques for memorizing

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vaarky
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Techniques for memorizing

Post by vaarky »

Anyone got tips or techniques for memorizing music? It's been a very long time since I've had to memorize any.

I am mostly taking the brute force approach of doing my best, seeing where I'm forgetting, looking it over to analyze how I might remember that spot (whether it's remembering the layout on the page, or "first time through 7 beats rest, second time only 3 beats rest", or noting when I can get the words because another part enters with the words two beats before me, etc. Words and entrance timing is the hardest for me--remembering notes is easy.

Any other tools I should add to my bag of tricks? Much appreciated.
vaarky
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Re: Techniques for memorizing

Post by vaarky »

Related to the topic, but I post for the cool Icelandic women's a cappella recording on the page:
http://thechoirgirl.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... ecret.html
bobnotts
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Re: Techniques for memorizing

Post by bobnotts »

I'm not bad at memorizing things, Vaarky, but I think I can appreciate your situation. When I have to sing something from memory, I simply have to sing it many, many times. Perhaps that's not very useful! As for knowing when to come in, I try to pick out 1 or 2 parts that come in before me, and then just "know" when my part should begin. I never try to memorise the amount of bars before an entry but I usually know what beat my entry begins on. Of course, it's trickier with polyphony. One thing I'd say is that the learning process is always most productive for me when I'm singing with the other people and not trying to learn it on my own.

I'm not sure I've added anything here but anyway...!
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vaarky
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Re: Techniques for memorizing

Post by vaarky »

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm finding that memorization is a muscle that got rusty but is getting unrusty as I apply it (we were assigned two additional songs to memorize since I posted). Memorizing the other pieces seems to have made these new ones easier somehow, I think.
choralia
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Re: Techniques for memorizing

Post by choralia »

Besides wery occasional exceptions, I always sing with the score in my hands. But watching the director is more important than reading the score, so my objective is obtaining a sufficient level of memorization that allows me to read the score from time to time only, just to refresh memory, and pay more attention to the director instead.

To achieve such an objective, I typically exploit a specific "time slot" of my day: it's a period of about 30 - 40 minutes required for me to go from home to office or vice-versa. While driving my car, I repeatedly listen to the training aids ("memorization aids" in this case?) that I also publish at Choralia. Honestly speaking, I do not necessarily concentrate on music: I often think about other stuff, such as the work planning for the day, open issues, and so on. Nevertheless, music gets somewhat recorded in the brain (right emisphere activity, I guess), so, after this strange kind of "passive practice", I can read the score less frequently than I needed before.

Max
vaarky
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Re: Techniques for memorizing

Post by vaarky »

I'm pretty good at getting to that level too, and I agree about the importance of being able to watch the conductor. In fact, I can sing along with the recording without any score whatsoever. It's the next step, when I have to sing it one-on-a-part, that I (and the other singers) realize that there are a few parts where I've been leaning on the recording or the other singers (such as the Distler Singer dem Herrn, where he uses varying patterns of Singet entrances especially in the Lobet dem Herrn movement). So I've had to resort to techniques such 7 beats rest, then 3, then 4, then 3. Maybe I need to study the relationship of my part to the other parts more...
CHGiffen
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Re: Techniques for memorizing

Post by CHGiffen »

In singing madrigals and other works with just one person on a part (without a conductor) I've always been aware of the importance of eye contact amongst the singers, where enough familiarity with the work engenders the smile or nod or some sort of indication to a singer that they are making an entrance. Such gestures are probably really second nature and part of the comraderie amongst the singers in a group.

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vaarky
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Re: Techniques for memorizing

Post by vaarky »

Wow, having one week to memorize not just a song, but a particular artist's rendition of a song!
http://www.myspace.com/mooreamusic2
pml
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Re: Techniques for memorizing

Post by pml »

Hi Vaarky!

I find a lot of singers (in my conducting experience of amateur choirs) might as well be singing monophony, because it often seems they are only hearing a single line, and they have no idea how it is subordinated to the whole. Classic example last week, sopranos wondering where they're getting a certain note entry from, well hello, it's been sung for the last three bars by the basses, admittedly in a lower octave, if you'd deign to use your ears.

Now that's a very low level of ability, and I've no doubt you sing at a much higher level, so you're much more aware of how your part fits in with the ensemble; you can listen to other parts while singing your own and maintain your harmonic and rhythmic independence. Nonetheless, I often notice myself tending to think of only the line, and so in polyphonic music when there is a long rest before an entry, the passage where I'm not singing seems to disappear. My trick for memorising is to internally sing one of the other parts - especially one that either bears a relationship to a phrase in my own part, or one that provides a helpful lead-in. You end up with slightly more to memorise, but it means you're not passively waiting for an entry, but are (internally) engaged with the flow of the music.

Given you mentioned Distler's Singet: I surprised myself a year or so ago finding I could sing most of Bach's Singet from memory. Admittedly in double choir, it helps if you've sung both of the voice parts at different times! :)

Regards, Philip
vaarky
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Re: Techniques for memorizing

Post by vaarky »

But, I'm a soprano! Surely they should be listening to me, and not the other way around. :)
Seriously, a great point, and good to be reminded of it.

(Also reminds me I'd like to sing through the Bach Singet again.)
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